How vaccine funding cuts in the U.S. are impacting Manitoba researchers

Virologist Jason Kindrachuk discusses how the U.S. government’s cuts to vaccine funding will impact Manitoba.

The U.S government’s recent cuts to vaccine funding is having an impact on researchers across Canada, including in Manitoba.

Manitoba virologist Jason Kindrachuk, who has been working for years on the Mpox response in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said he doesn’t know how the cuts will impact his work.

Researchers are concerned, he said, because things are up in the air and they can’t make any definitive plans.

“We will continue to find ways, however we can, to move funds around and try to spread funds even thinner to respond,” he said in an interview with CTV Morning Live Winnipeg on Friday.

“But certainly, when you start removing more and more of your equipment and taking things off, it gets a little bit harder to skate down the ice.”

Along with the funding cuts, the United States is withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Kindrachuk said this is a cause for concern as U.S. government workers won’t be able to take part in advisory and working groups where research is shared.

He said this removes the United States’ ability to get updates from researchers who are putting in the work, but it also means other countries won’t be able to get input from U.S. experts.

“We have to appreciate that many of these folks have been experts in these areas for many decades,” he said.

“So, removing them from these types of groups really impacts the type of knowledge transfer that we’re used to.”

Kindrachuk added he’s also worried about how the U.S.’s removal from the WHO will impact future and current disease outbreaks.

“The less infantry that we have on the frontlines of this, being able to provide information, expertise and participate in data sharing and data analysis, really the harder it is for us to try and keep things at bay to any standpoint,” he said.

Kindrachuk said though it’s hard to see people being removed from the table, he emphasized that Canadian researchers will continue to find ways to work with other countries.

• With files from CTV’s Rachel Lagacé